


a brace of hours and wild things, a wreath of fangs beneath

by Sovin



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Les Amis de l'ABC, Gen, Labyrinth AU, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sovin/pseuds/Sovin
Summary: Grantaire recovers, scoffs, arms crossed over his chest again. "... So you just, what, decided to brave a magical Labyrinth filled with obstacles unnumbered and dangers untold to save a baby you don't even know?"He sounds incredulous, almost scornful, and Enjolras bristles a bit, drawing himself straighter. "Yes."(A Labyrinth AU, wherein Enjolras accidentally becomes both a paladin and a parent, and picks up a goblin along the way.)





	a brace of hours and wild things, a wreath of fangs beneath

**Author's Note:**

> The standard disclaimer applies: I hold intellectual property rights for neither franchise, probably to the great relief of all involved.
> 
> Anyway, there are brief intimations of abuse leading to child abandonment, but this should otherwise be fairly safe to read.
> 
> A million thanks to [socpuppet](http://www.socpuppet.tumblr.com) for the idea of a goblin Grantaire when I first mentioned this AU to her like two years ago (and for being a wonderful enabler), and to [shakeskp](http://www.shakeskp.tumblr.com/) for appropriately trendy French baby names, because verisimilitude is important, even in fairytale AUs.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to come chat about magical realism and the power of friendship over at [my tumblr](http://www.sovinly.tumblr.com)!

The night is quiet, and Enjolras anticipates a long session of interrupted work, poring over legal documents and case studies that Courfeyrac has sent him. It itches under his skin, too quiet, too still, but it's a feeling easily banished by a cup of coffee and one of Bossuet's playlists pulled up at the corner of his screen.

The window slams open, curtains billowing inwards and a swirl of light like glitter - fine as dust - across his desk and computer. There's a man - or not a man, perhaps - standing there, tall and imposing, his clothes ruffled and anachronistic, pupils mismatched, cloak swirling around him and altogether inhuman, unreal, cold.

"What is this?" Enjolras asks of the creature - he cannot be human, though Enjolras’ mind rebels at the thought, there's something other about him, like oil on water.

The apparition looks around, and chuckles, taking in Enjolras with the unnerving, strange eyes, his cool mouth curling up at the corner, just a bit too much to seem real. "How _fascinating_."

He sweeps around Enjolras, utterly silent, and Enjolras tracks him, hand on the glass paperweight Joly had given him a handful of years before, wary of his intruder.

"I am Jareth, king of the Goblins," Jareth says, rich and thick as cream. "Did you know, Enjolras, that people can wish for my goblins to whisk their babies away to my keeping? In return for their forgetting, I offer them their dreams."

A flourish, and there is a ball in his hand, too delicate to be glass, as fine spun as soap but lacking the iridescent swirls, and he rolls it around and over and back, a pretty bit of sleight of hand, as he continues.

"And what does that have to do with me?" Enjolras asks, still turning slowly to keep his eyes locked on that of this Goblin King. When they've turned all the way back, the wall has vanished, replaced with an almost barren looking landscape that smells dry and cold, and his stomach clenches because this can't be a trick unless he's been drugged, somehow, but there's no way for that to be possible. His hand slides for his phone, wondering if he can call Combeferre. "I don't have any children."

Jareth's mismatched eyes bore into him as he shifts, suddenly, back against the edge of the entryway. "No, but when the child's mother chose to give her up, the Labyrinth pulled me to _you_. It is none of your concern, Enjolras. Go back to your work and forget all of this - it has nothing to do with you."

"Then why did the Labyrinth bring you to me?" he asks, sharp and watchful, his hand still clenched around his phone. Enjolras isn't interested in fairy tales, but he knows enough about them to be mistrustful and wary.

"Because you could run the Labyrinth, and challenge me for the child," Jareth says, waving his hand, and the little ball disappears rather than flying off into space. "It must think you a suitable replacement, but no matter."

Enjolras hesitates. Something about that sits uncertainly with him, and the rustling and soft sounds of laughter from behind him don't help. "What happens to the child if I don't run your labyrinth?"

The Goblin King's eyes flash, blue ringed in copper, and he laughs, soft as silver, and it is makes Enjolras feel nauseated rather than settled. "The goblin lands are hardly the place for a human, no, she'll become a goblin and live happily, as their sort do."

The thought makes him sick - there aren't many children in his building, he knows that, but none of the women he knows seem like they would be cruel enough to give up their child to a fairytale monster. It sounds too easy. It sounds wrong. It sounds like he is the only one standing between a child - an infant? A toddler? Older? - and a place under the kind of king who would steal children and erase the memory of them.

He wonders, just for a moment, if he could or should truly take responsibility for a child, but that's a bridged to be crossed when the child is _safe_. Enjolras sets his phone on his desk - Jehan and Combeferre's ruminations on the nature of magic (theoretically) and electronics, not to mention years of Harry Potter, suggest that it's not the best idea to take it - and steps forward, and forward, until he's passed through the shiver of a barrier and is standing face to face and eye to eye with the Goblin King.

It feels like looking in a harsh, distorted mirror.

"I will run your labyrinth for the child," he says, as bold and firm as he can. Wording is important with fae, even if that's all that he remembers of them.

Jareth stares at him, as though he'd actually thought Enjolras would back down, and then smiles - another strange stretched thing - before waving a hand to summon a clock. "You have thirteen hours, then, to pass the Labyrinth and to my castle beyond the Goblin City and claim the babe. You'd best start walking and hope you find your right words before then - if you reach the gates at all."

It's hardly fair, but Enjolras only nods and glances back to see his room completely gone. Jareth is as well when he turns back, so Enjolras starts down the hill, toward the labyrinth, as quickly as he dares. Thirteen hours is not much time at all.

The landscape is less barren than Enjolras had originally thought, almost desert like, with the odd, glitterlike dust covering fallen branches and scattering around his feet. But he keeps his attention focused on the maze ahead of him, taking in details as best he can - it's vast, though, and the wall is high, and so there's very little that he can tell other than that it will be undoubtedly complicated.

There's a semblance of a garden in front, wilted and ancient, and it almost makes him shiver. Enjolras isn't like Combeferre, willing to entertain belief in anything, but there's something about this place that makes his bones itch.

He finds the gardener, who must be a goblin, and catches her attention. "Excuse me, madam, but could you tell me where the door to the labyrinth is?"

"The Labyrinth," she corrects, in her creaky little voice, eyes disconcertingly large as she looks up at Enjolras, her shears clutched in her hands. "Aren't you a charmer? Tch, but you'll never get anywhere without your right words."

Enjolras is already weary of fae and the demands of their wording, but he _does_ know how to be charming when he needs to be. He's quiet a moment, mulling it over - if there's no door in sight, then that may be the wrong question. "I fear you are correct, madam. Perhaps... would you assist me in entering the Labyrinth, please?"

The goblin's face breaks into a wide smile - almost too wide - and she nods, tucking away her tools and walking to the wall, where there are doors that weren't there before. "There you are. Hmph, perhaps you'll last more than a few minutes, after all. _Humans_."

He thanks her as politely as he can, because courtesy never goes amiss, and steps through. The halls, though, seem to extend endlessly in both directions. Enjolras doesn't have time to debate, with the clock ticking against him and a Labyrinth ahead.

"Well, right is right," he says, because he may as well go for the pun, and sets off down the long corridor. There are still no turns, no gaps at all as he walks briskly, and this feels wrong. There must be a trick he's missing, but Enjolras can't figure out what it might be.

"You just have to get the trick of optical illusions," Joly told him one night while they all sat around the table, clever Joly who always tilted his head to see the trick of things and delighted when he found it. "You take things too literally, my friend!"

Enjolras knows the stone is solid under his feet, not at all rocking even when he'd stepped heavily over the littered tree branches twisting from the ground. The walls don't look like they have sturdy enough footholds to climb, but appearances can be deceiving - that, he knows better than most.

Tentative, he presses his hand to the wall and starts walking again, feeling for some trick of the bricks, only for his hand to suddenly stumble on a gap. Enjolras narrows his eyes, but the stone looks solid enough. The gap is still there, and as he turns to step through, feeling it out with his hands, he can abruptly _see_ the shift, and the other corridor hiding behind the first.

Nothing in this Labyrinth is what it seems. It's a good thing to remember, but this is only one trick, and his time is running down. He goes left.

It brings him to what seems a stone maze of walls, something decidedly strange to the proportions and angles, because even the architecture here is inhuman. Enjolras feels lost, doesn't know where he's going and has no landmarks in this strange place - there's not even a sense of North, and the walls are just high enough that he can't see the turret of Jareth's castle.

Frustrated, he makes himself pause to take inventory, a scowl tugging his mouth downward. He's _tired_ , can feel that he's not at his best after a long day of work and study, but there will be time to be tired when the little girl is safe and free. Taking a deep breath, Enjolras looks up, and finds what passes for a sun in this strange place, takes note of the shadows, because attention to detail has always come easily to him, and starts walking.

It's no use, ultimately - he's hopelessly turned around, and there's a scuffle of stone behind him. The Labyrinth makes him feel paranoid, but there's the flicker of stone moving at the corner of his vision. When he turns to look, though, it's settled, and he's suddenly facing a dead end when he'd just come that way.

A moving maze. Of course. Why would a Goblin King, who wanted to keep a child for his own, play fair? But when Enjolras leans around the next bend, there are a pair of doors - guarded, but existent. That must mean he's getting somewhere, which is better than nowhere.

Enjolras approaches, warily - they look like card soldiers out of Alice in Wonderland, almost, but with heads at either end. "Hello."

"Oh, look, a visitor," the bottom right head says, one of the ones dressed in blue, while the others are in red.

"Would you tell me, please, what lies beyond your doors?" he asks, polite, and hopes that the wording is cautious enough.

"Rest of the Labyrinth, innit?" the bottom left says. "But you'll have to talk to the above-heads for that. Careful, though - one of them always tells the truth and the other always lies."

"But you can only ask one of us a question!" the upper right head volunteers, all their elongated, pointed, strange faces staring at him for a moment before they get distracted with their bickering banter once more.

They're surprisingly solicitous, and Enjolras wonders if he should feel suspicious of that, but there's no choice but to trust their words, at least a little. And this, this sounds like a logic puzzle. Combeferre went through a phase of them recently and spent nights when he was stressed out and exhausted painstakingly explaining them to Enjolras.

The trick, he remembers, for this one, is to come up with a question that will give him a definitive answer either way. He thinks for a long while, trying to recall all the qualities that Combeferre had specified, and makes sure he thinks through it twice before turning to the guard on the left.

"Would he," Enjolras asked slowly, pointing to the guard on the right, "tell me that your door leads toward the castle?"

"No," the guard says, and Enjolras thinks through it.

If the left-guard were the truth teller, then the right-guard would say the left-door is _not_ the right door but that would be a lie, but if the left-guard were the liar, then the right-guard would, truthfully, answer that the left door is the correct door.

"Alright," he says, and nods sharply, satisfied and thankful for Combeferre's thoroughness making an impression on him. "The left door it is, then. If you would open, please, and thank you both for your help."

Grumbling, the left-guard(s?) opens the door and steps out of the way, and Enjolras is momentarily confident that he is making good time and good choices.

That's when the floor drops out from under him, and his mind goes blank with panic. He hates that feeling of weightlessness, of loss of control, of suddenly falling, and he lets out a brief startled sound. He's still scrambling when there are suddenly hands, cold and scaly and clammy on him and Enjolras can't breathe.

He can't stand this much contact, this much touching his skin, grabbing at him, and he feels sick, realizes too late that he's crying out to be let go of, and that they're the only thing keeping hold of him, and he's dropping again.

Enjolras goes tumbling further down, hands still brushing his skin until he hits the ground with a jarring sound, and he shudders, taking great gasps of air and trying to breathe. He's shivering despite himself, and not just from the cold and dark, struggling to get his breathing back under control. It was too much, too much, too much, and he feels like he's crawling out of his skin.

It takes a moment to remember the breathing tricks that Cosette had taught him. He remembers her taking his hands in her smaller ones, the slow intake of breath through the nose and out through the mouth, the way she'd breathed through it with him until he had the pattern of it, and if he thinks hard enough, he can almost feel the warmth of her hand, almost smell the faint soft linden scent of her soap, and slowly he calms again.

The room he's in is dark, with only the faintest hints of light from above. There must be some way out, even if it's not immediately visible. There's always a trick, if someone's clever enough to find it. First, he takes a few more steadying gulps of air, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness of the lighting. Even down here, there's the faint little flickers of the glittery dust, and he's not sure what gives it that strange quality. There's debris lying around, and he'll have to move very, very carefully while trying to preserve as much of his time as he can, since he has no idea how far it is to the castle or how much time he has left.

That's about the time that a trapdoor pushes up, and the light of a torch comes shining through.

"Enjoying the oubliette?" whoever it is asks as they climb up into the room, sounding a little amused. Their voice is just a little creaky, and Enjolras must be imagining things because something about their vowels sounds almost _familiar_ , like the south of France, even though they sound faintly strange in the way all the fae creatures here have.

Enjolras makes a non-committal noise, not really surprised that the Labyrinth has oubliettes nor that he's managed to fall into one. The person goes to light one of the torches, and he blinks against the suddenness of the light.

They look like a goblin, sort of. Or, well, mostly - they're taller than the rest of them, but would be short for a human, with a long riot of dark curls threaded through with beads and bits of glass, and sharp brown eyes just a little too far apart and gleaming oddly. But they look more human than the rest of the goblins that Enjolras has glimpsed thus far, ashy skin spotted with patches of roughness that look more like dry skin or eczema than almost knobby, and they bare their teeth in something like a grin when they realize that Enjolras is studying them.

"Right, well, I was going to help you get out of here, but if you'd rather stare," they say - he says? - crossly, folding arms across a stocky chest.

"My apologies," Enjolras says, softly, and stands up carefully, the ceiling just high enough that he doesn't hit his head on it. He supposes he has no right to stare, and probably looks more of a mess than the other, after his fall. "I would appreciate any help you'd give, but I'm not sure why you would."

The goblin snorts, his face wrinkling up a little. "You are just hitting this politeness thing right out of the park. Maybe I just don't like people wasting away in my oubliettes. Though, in something like equity, I knew a dwarf once who defined them as a dark place where you send people to forget about them, which, really, is probably an equally suitable definition for humanity, or the Labyrinth itself. And, despite my frightful appearance, I am not the minotaur, so such suspicion is unwarranted, though I really can't fault you for being mistrustful when nothing here is as it seems and after you've found that fault in the flagstones, but the point remains that oubliettes are homes for bones and spiders, and you, monsieur, appear to be neither. Besides, you never know, maybe I have bets riding on how long it will take you to give up."

"I don't plan to give up," Enjolras says, gritting his teeth momentarily before forcing himself to stillness again. "I apologize for casting aspersions on your intentions... Ah, I'm sorry. I'm Enjolras. What's your name?"

"... Grantaire," the goblin says, after a moment, watching Enjolras like he doesn't know what to make of him. "Or R, if you'd rather, it's all the same to me. I suppose we'd best get you on your way out of here."

He bends, picking up a board and placing it against the wall, pressing it close for a moment before prying one side away. Amazingly, the other stays as though on hinges, and light spills in. Grantaire gives him another too-wide goblin grin. "And here we are. I've no skill at calculations, but I suspect you'd rather not waste time, as impatient and short as you are with words."

Enjolras bites back a retort and just inclines his head, following Grantaire through the doorway and into the hall. "So, you watch the oubliettes?"

"It's part of what I do," Grantaire acknowledges, turning so instinctively it's clear that he's familiar with these tunnels, throwing cheerful insults and banter at the gloomy, ominous stone heads that seem to be carved from pillars of stone. He doesn't seem inclined to chat too much, and seems almost as suspicious of Enjolras as Enjolras is of him. Finally, he leads them to a ladder and smiles a bit. "Ah, a way up toward the sunlight, though I'm afraid you're still Underground all the same, but I can point you on your way and wash my hands of this."

He takes a leap and pulls himself up several rungs, and Enjolras cautiously follows behind him. It's a long climb back up, and he wonders if their previous route had taken them deeper than the oubliette even.

They don't talk much, hardly say anything at all, even when a rung snaps under Grantaire's foot - though, to be fair, it hardly seems to bother him at all. Enjolras is more careful, though, because his time is running down and he can't waste it by falling.

"Alright," Grantaire says when they reach the top and clamber out through a large vase, swinging himself down to the ground easily. They seem to be in a hedge maze, one that reminds Enjolras of old fashioned gardens. "There, you should be back on track, now."

He really doesn't seem very enthusiastic at that prospect, and Enjolras can feel his mouth dipping in a frown at that.

"If you mistrust me so much," he says, finally, "then why did you help me?"

"If you don't intend to give up, why did you wish away a child?" Grantaire fires back, twisting to look at Enjolras over his shoulder, unimpressed.

Enjolras blinks at him, suddenly realizing that it would be the logical conclusion to draw, that he had wished away a child placed in his keeping. "It's... actually not my child. Apparently, when her mother gave her away, the Labyrinth decided that I should be made the offer. I admit, I don't know how the system works."

Grantaire jerks back a little, blinking and surprised. Well, Jareth had mentioned it was unprecedented. Grantaire recovers, scoffs, arms crossed over his chest again. "... So you just, what, decided to brave a magical Labyrinth filled with obstacles unnumbered and dangers untold to save a baby you don't even _know_?"

He sounds incredulous, almost scornful, and Enjolras bristles a bit, drawing himself straighter. "Yes."

The goblin stares at him another moment.

"I need a drink," he mutters, then sighs. "I need to go check on something. Just, try to stay out of trouble, and keep heading toward the castle."

Enjolras feels a surge of irritation, but it's not as though Grantaire is oathbound to help him, if he even has been at all. Well, Enjolras can admit that he does seem to be back on track, but he has a hard time believing anything to be certain in the Labyrinth. It's too late to say anything, anyway, as Grantaire has swung himself back down onto the ladder.

Well, then.

He starts forward, trying to get his bearings, but everything in this world seems somehow off and difficult to know - even the weight of the stones under his feet seems different, subtly _odd_ in some indefinable way. Enjolras' mind isn't built for mazes, really, but he manages to make some progress anyway, grateful for the open air after the closeness of the tunnels.

As he turns a corner, there's not even a ripple of premonition to prepare him for Jareth to suddenly be standing there, a ruff of owl feathers at the collar of his cape, leaning with amusement against a twisted little tree for a moment before swaying forward, stalking towards Enjolras.

"Enjolras," he greets. "Oh, dear, you seem to have misplaced Grantaire - that's a pity, I'm sure."

Enjolras just studies the Goblin King. He's not... intimidating, certainly, not terrifying, and yet Enjolras is very aware that he does have power over this place that Enjolras does not. Just because he isn't intimidated doesn't mean he shouldn't be cautious, so he keeps his face blank.

"He said he needed to check on something," he says, neutral. "I certainly couldn't hold him if he didn't want to be kept. Or was he supposed to lead me astray?"

Jareth laughs - a strange sound, slightly grating. "Oh, _hardly_. Grantaire knows the Labyrinth very well - he might have helped you further if he liked you, or led you all the way back to the start if he did not. As stubborn as you are, you may have even annoyed him into giving up altogether."

The fae sounds strangely delighted by that prospect, his sharp, harsh features even more pronounced in the high sunlight. His head tilts up, his mismatched eyes raking over Enjolras. "Now. How _are_ you enjoying my Labyrinth? Finding it a challenge?"

Enjolras weighs his answer, setting aside the issue of Grantaire momentarily as he thinks.

"Nothing is what it seems, certainly, and it is full of challenges," he replies after a moment, and lets one brow curve upwards slightly. "Despite setbacks, I seem to be proceeding apace."

"Oh, you _charming_ little thing," Jareth says, his eyes flashing, sharp and hard as ice, his smile twitching into something far more predatory. "Well, clever as you are, perhaps you could stand to feel the... press of things a little more. I think I'll take an hour."

"That wasn't part of our agreement," Enjolras points out, rage seething under his breastbone at the unfairness of it all. But Jareth seemed to think his very presence here was unfair - if a novelty - in and of itself, so he bites down on the frustration, keeping his face as cool as he can. Games of composure and patience are where he excels.

Jareth's smile somehow sharpens even further.

"So win it back," he drawls, and vanishes.

Mouth narrowing in a thin line, Enjolras takes a moment to close his eyes and bring his temper back under control, sighs, and starts walking again. There’s no point in expecting a child-stealing Goblin King to play by human rules - though, as Bahorel would probably point out, it likely isn't any worse than what a lawyer would do. Except lawyers generally don't have magical powers and strange, distorted Labyrinths.

And it is a strange Labyrinth, nothing like Enjolras' mental picture of one - but then, this isn't a world built for him. He’s just going through it for someone else, someone who felt they had no other option than to give their child up to a land of Goblins. Except he's misjudged, and now he's lost an hour.

But maybe Jareth would have taken an hour no matter what Enjolras had said, for moving too quickly through the maze and spoiling his fun or threatening his plans or whatever strange mechanism made sense to him.  Perhaps the Goblin King is as capricious and fickle as Bossuet’s old friend.

“If bad luck taps my shoulder and trips up my feet, at least I know I was in danger of getting somewhere,” Bossuet had told him cheerily enough, when Enjolras quietly sought him out to see how he was doing after his workplace had gotten robbed during his shift. “I call it a reminder to celebrate that success, and the fact that I’m a bird with a bumped head and not a cracked egg!”

A little facetious, maybe, but Enjolras appreciates his point. He’s made it so far and quickly, and that’s surely a good sign. He still has time and so he squares his shoulders.

Still doing his best to head inwards, Enjolras shakes himself out of his thoughts to pay more attention to the hedges. He’s tall, almost as tall as they are, but every time he tries pushing himself up to tiptoe, they grow just enough to block his view. There isn't quite a pattern to it, but the Labyrinth seems to favor spirals rather than straight lines. He takes that into account, and it seems to be helping him run into slightly fewer dead ends. Maybe.

There's a paradox that surrounds the Labyrinth, where time seems both to speed by and drag on, and it makes Enjolras uncertain of whether this is too easy, or if he's wasting time. But, suddenly, the hedge maze opens up to a towering brick wall, covered in ivy, with a gnarled, spindled tree growing along it, its roots cracking the flagstones.

Enjolras doesn't see any movement or hear anything, but there's the slight unevenness to the ground that suggest there's a steady, routine movement over it - like a patrol, which is the last thing he needs to deal with right now. He keeps moving, still hyperaware of the lost time, and ducks through an archway.

Recessed into the wall and covered in ivy and other climbing plants are two doors with massive, face-shaped knockers. It's clearly another test, but it's also another way forward. Now, with a sort of exhausted resignation, he thinks he just needs to figure out exactly what the test _is_.

Except, it turns out, it's not a test in the same way the last set of doors was, which is fair. There's not a whole lot he can get out of the door to the right, even when he removes the weight of the heavy iron ring from its mouth, other than that he only has to knock on whichever door he chooses to go through. It also asks him not to put the ring back in its mouth, which seems a fair request, given that the thing is damnably heavy.

Still, a choice. He hesitates, abruptly frustrated by the lack of information about how to chose. At least with the logic puzzle, he'd had an idea. But then, every path that takes him deeper seems to have some way to move forward, if only he's clever enough to figure it out.

When he’d first met Éponine, he’d been unsettled by her seemingly careless attitude toward making choices and her flippant disregard for her own safety. She’d shrugged when someone finally asked her about it, all of them a little dizzy with alcohol and the easy joy of company. “Just got to ask what’s the worst that could happen, and what’s at stake if you do nothing,” she had said, like everything boiled down to something so simple and so clear.

He's not as good at snap judgments as she is, but this answer is easy. The worst outcome is that he loses time, and the stake is the child who isn't allowed to make a choice - and every second he lingers, he loses time for certain, and he's lost an hour already. Enjolras went left last time, and he'll go left again. Setting down the right door's ring, he steps over, lifts the knocker on the left door and lets it fall, then steps through.

The corridor is dark and cool, almost musty, and it drops down even as the light fades into its depths, but he keeps walking, feeling the patterns of many tree roots lining the walls of the tunnel. It slopes down, but doesn't branch to the sides, even though the ground is uneven. It's dim, only a little light filtering in from strange gaps in the ceiling. Enjolras quickens his pace, but keeps his step light and careful, not wanting to rush into danger. He's making good time, at least, and hopes it's in the right direction.

It's not certain, especially because the longer he walks, the more the smell of something starts encroaching on his senses, pungent and faint. And then the gaps in the wall start, places where tunnels seem to intersect. He has to guess that they're ancillary tunnels, because this one is wider than the others, and is starting to slope up, just a little bit, as the loamy soil starts to melt into something sandy even as the smell gets stronger.

"Oh, here you are." The voice comes suddenly from his right, and Enjolras whirls, half expecting Jareth again for a wild moment, but his eyes settle on a shorter, darkness-blurred figure, and Grantaire's teeth flash in a grin as he steps out from a partially hidden tunnel. "And here I thought it would be easy to find you with your beacon of hair."

Something petty hovers at the tip of his tongue, but he recalls what Jareth said - and fae can't lie, even if they can stretch the truth and play with it shamelessly as any politician. He tries for mild when he says, "I didn't think I would see you again."

Grantaire snorts and waves a hand, even as he starts to walk alongside Enjolras. "I told you I needed to check something. I'm not sure I would have chosen this way, but you've made progress all the same."

"And lost an hour of my time," Enjolras snaps, then forces himself to take a breath. "I ran into your Goblin King."

"Oh, well, it could have been worse than an hour," Grantaire replies, casual, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I hear he once set a Runner against the Cleaners - big spiky metal death trap that they are - for sassing him. Might as well enjoy your luck, while you have it."

Though he bristles at the casual resignation, Enjolras has to admit it’s a more pessimistic echo of Bossuet's advice, and he stays quiet instead. There's a growing light to the dim tunnel, anyway, and it opens into a cave as they turn the corner, only to be met with a sudden assault of stench.

"What _is_ that?" Enjolras asks, aghast, as they cross the cavern, blinking against the sudden light and squinting out at what looks to be a swamp, fighting the urge to bring his arm up over his face.

"Possibly the only thing more obnoxious and foul than me in the entirety of the Labyrinth," Grantaire says gleefully enough as he grandly gestures at the expanse before them. "Welcome to the Bog of Eternal Stench."

"That is disgusting," he mutters, nose screwing up, but they're running out of time, so he steps forward. "And crossing this will take us closer to the castle?"

His own face a little screwed up, Grantaire nods. "There's a path. Just... be careful not to fall in, touch, or otherwise come into contact with the swamp. You will literally smell like that for all of eternity, and I imagine it's an even worse fate for a human than a goblin, if you manage to get back Aboveground."

Enjolras shouldn't be surprised that such a place exists, and dutifully follows Grantaire, the two wending their way through. Other than the smell - which is overwhelming - it's not terribly foreboding, with tall, mossy trees and sandy pathways. Even more than the well-tended hedge and stone mazes, or even the dark, dank oubliettes, it feels _old_. Ancient, like something primordial left over from dark ages before humans even began to form. It feels like something out of a fairytale.

Grantaire, beside him, doesn't seem to notice their surroundings much, his eyes occasionally up to the sky.

Enjolras hesitates a moment, then decides to ask his question. "If it's alright to ask, where exactly did you have to go earlier?"

"Making sure you were telling the truth." Grantaire says it casually, as though he doesn't see how anyone could expect anything else. That makes sense, Enjolras supposes. "I went to see who wished the child away and why the Labyrinth might pick someone else."

"Did you find out?" Enjolras asks, curious, because he can imagine the sorts of circumstances that might drive someone to wish away a child, but it's hard to think that someone could bring themselves to. There's so much he doesn't know about this situation - doesn't even know the girl's name or how old she is, exactly.

Grantaire looks so deeply unhappy that it's almost gut wrenching. He's silent for a beat too long.

"She was just a girl herself," he says, quiet and almost gentle. Enjolras remembers Jareth saying the baby's mother wished her away and feels colder than ice. "There's something humans say, about children who have to grow up too quickly? She wasn't a spoiled child wishing away an inconvenience - she understood her words well enough to use them and mean them."

Enjolras takes a sharp breath, rendered speechless. "And that's why...?"

"She must have been in a liminal space," Grantaire muses, something subdued and strange to him. "Old enough emotionally to have custody and make a choice, but young enough that the Labyrinth decided that it wouldn't be fair not to offer someone else the same - you must have been the only suitable person nearby."

He looks over and takes in the look on Enjolras' face, then snorts softly. He sounds sad, though, rather than biting or bitter.

"The Labyrinth isn't something anyone can really _know_ , except maybe the King,” Grantaire continues. “But there's a pattern, you see. If the wisher doesn't really mean their words, the determination is usually enough to get them to the child in time. If they really don't want the child, or truly, bone-deep think it will be better off here, they usually can't. But a child who grew up too soon, who’s too young to understand the way the Labyrinth works - it doesn't matter how hard they try; it might not be enough. Do you understand?"

Enjolras feels sick to his stomach. "And so the Labyrinth decided that someone who had a chance was required."

Grantaire's mouth tips up, lopsided, his odd dark eyes so gentle. "It's not concerned with fair or nice, just with right. It must have picked right with you, since you're here."

There's a weight to that Enjolras doesn't understand, but he nods. "I've been wondering, the whole time, if I ought to offer custody back."

The part-goblin shakes his head. "She really thought this was better - she can't raise a baby. She's only a little girl."

How little is too young for the Labyrinth? Seventeen? Sixteen, fourteen? He has questions he doesn't want to ask.

"She'll be alright, or will have the chance to be," Grantaire says. He glances over, sad and tired, suffused with it. He doesn't look vengeful, just angry and weary and fierce. Of course goblins would care about wished away children, those abandoned like so much garbage, who were tossed aside and left unloved – there’s no façade of indifference to hide that. Especially if they _started_ as those children. "There are other sorts of creatures, who prey on those who prey on children."

It should sound chilling. It just makes Enjolras wish, for a moment, that he was one. Makes him wish he had the time to spare to weep. He doesn't push or say anything more, still processing the implications that make him shiver. Quietly, he wonders how many Runners entered thinking this was one type of fairytale, only to belatedly find it another and with dangers unspeakable.

His reverie is interrupted by the sight of the ruins of a bridge, broken down and crumbled. To the right, though, a series of large boulders are settled in the muck, moss clinging to their sides.

Either they aren't slippery or goblins have very sure feet, because Grantaire hops easily to the first rock without hesitation, glancing back at Enjolras a moment later. "They're safe enough. We've been using them to cross since the bridge fell in, and you're hardly big enough to crack these stones."

Enjolras wonders how long the bridge had stood before _it_ collapsed, but he just nods and steps onto the first rock, carefully concentrating on his balance. He hasn't forgotten what Grantaire had said about the consequences of falling in. But it really is easy enough, and the path starts to slope up again on the other side.

Actually, as they walk, the ground under their feet begins to alter again as the trees change and grow denser, more like a forest than a bog. The changes in environment in the Labyrinth are sudden and sharp, but not so abrupt that they feel unnatural - or at least, not any more unnatural than anything else here.

Now that the path isn't made of sand, though, and is firmer, Enjolras can tell that it's not well worn at all, roots and greenery encroaching thickly on either side.

"Do many goblins come this way?" he asks, and Grantaire, hanging back a little, starts at the sudden address.

"Not many," he allows, "and certainly not often because they want to. Most goblins stick to the Goblin City, or wherever their homes are. No one really _wants_ to stay in a terrible smelling bog, you know, and there are better ways to get around."

Enjolras considers that. “Are there many settlements of goblins, or are they mostly clustered in the city?”

"Largely in the city, but there's more than one type of goblin," Grantaire tells him, shrugging, eyes still fixed ahead of them. "Some are wished-away children, and some are born here. They all have different places they prefer to live. Rather like humans, I’d think, unless you’re so different from us."

"Oh, I suppose that makes sense," Enjolras says, slowly, considering it. Unless goblins have infinite life-spans, there can't possibly that many children recently wished away to this specific place. "Which sort of goblin are you?"

Grantaire looks over and up at him, mouth twisting a little even though it’s more amused than annoyed or offended. "I'm only part goblin, actually. And that is a ridiculously personal question."

"Of course, I'm sorry," he says immediately. How couldn't it be? Enjolras is... still sort of miserable with people on an individual level, blunt and unaware of crossing lines. Better than he used to be, because there's a shivering realization that there's a time when he might not have cared so much about the fate of the child. He's tempted, still, curious about what and how Grantaire can be only part goblin, but he knows the curtness of the answer has closed off that line of questioning, and understandably, whatever the humor in his tone. "I don't intend to be invasive. You're free, of course, to ask questions - I didn't mean for you to only answer them."

"You're not going to even know me after this," Grantaire points out, sardonically, but the creases to his forehead deepen minutely. He's quiet for a moment. "Alright, then. What part of France are you from?"

"Le Puy en Velay, though I live in Paris now," Enjolras replies, then pauses. “How do you know I’m French?”

“Your accent,” Grantaire says, grin reappearing suddenly. “I speak French – the Labyrinth hasn’t needed to translate many words for me. Did you think goblins just spoke French?”

He tilts his head slightly. “I thought it might well be more magic. How did you learn it?”

“The same way I learned all the other languages I know,” Grantaire drawls, and follows it with a glib and uncaring shrug, but he still seems a little closed off, so Enjolras decides to let the conversation trail off again. It’s not awkward, surprisingly, and he doesn’t even really mind when Grantaire starts humming, quiet enough not to echo through the trees. Though disconcerting, the forest is beautiful and striking.

Jehan, Enjolras idly thinks, would love it. He wonders if its inhabitants do.

They walk along in silence, wending their way in deeper and darker, with only Grantaire’s humming and the strange, reverberating sounds filtering back from the woods.

Enjolras’ watch has stopped working, since he didn’t think to take that off before entering, but it’s been over a day since he’s slept, and he’s hungrier than he cares to admit, but he forces himself to go on. But it begins to drag at him, and finally, as they start up what he thinks may be the last hill, he stumbles. He catches himself, and finds Grantaire at his elbow, a flash of concern on his face.

“I’m fine,” Enjolras tells him, straightening, his head spinning a little. “I just need to eat something.”

Grantaire nods, and pulls out a peach from his pocket with a flourish. It’s perfectly ripe and looks lovely.

“I have this,” Grantaire offers, but there’s something uncomfortable on his features, subtle and still, his eyes trained on Enjolras’ almost like something imploring, something waiting.

Enjolras wracks his brain for a possible catch, and remembers Jehan retelling the story of Hades and Persephone on a quiet night, and stories of the Otherworld, and of pigs who used to be men on Greek islands. The food of the otherworld has consequences.

“… Were you told to offer that to me?” Enjolras asks, and watches Grantaire stay silent and still.

If Jareth could appear to Enjolras, no doubt he could appear to Grantaire, and Enjolras’ mind fumbles around that for a moment. He’s so tired. But there’s no point in blaming someone who can’t disobey for fear of sudden, magical consequence, especially when Grantaire’s attempt at temptation was so transparent.

“You know, I think I’ll pass, but thank you,” Enjolras says.

Relief dawns on Grantaire’s face before he shrugs.

“Well, then I suppose that’s that,” he replies, sounding bored, before he suddenly tosses the peach off into the wood, sending it on a high, gorgeous arc away from them. He glances at Enjolras, and can’t quite suppress the twitch of his mouth that’s threatening a grin. “Oops.”

The suddenness makes Enjolras laugh, throwing back his head and feeling light for the first time in hours. The bright feeling is still in his chest as he reaches into his pockets, rummaging, and comes up with a crumpled and battered granola bar with a sticky note stuck to it.

_‘Eat me <3_’ it reads in Courfeyrac’s easy scrawl, and Enjolras’ heart is full to bursting. Courfeyrac does this sometimes, leaves food in Enjolras’ pockets or bags for when he’s too busy to eat properly, always with a kind note, and though Courfeyrac couldn’t have anticipated Enjolras being trapped in a strange Labyrinth, of course he finds it at the perfect time.

Enjolras is so very grateful for his friends that he could cry. Instead, he offers to split it with Grantaire, who shakes his head, and eats it as quickly as he dares. Already, his head feels clearer, and he takes a deep breath.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Grantaire inclines his head in silent agreement, and begins to walk again. The density of the woods does not lighten, looming dark and heavy around them, threatening a thousand glimmering mysteries if they stray from the path – Enjolras catches glimpses of pale blue lights, tendriled corneas that flicker and blink between the branches.

But the path twists slowly upward, the forest falling away on one side in favor of a hill steep and bare enough that he could almost call it a gully, the road itself narrow and treacherous. Grantaire’s sturdy feet seem steady, like the forest himself with the hints of reflections spinning off the decorations swaying in his dark and heavy hair.

Enjolras feels gangly, like some unsteady colt, usual controlled grace scrambling instead for purchase on stones that seem to roil beneath his feet.

He’s so focused on keeping his footing, in fact, and in counting down the time that is running constantly and relentlessly through his fingers, that he doesn’t realize that thought _means_ something, not until he catches the craggy smile of something small under a sudden jutting slab of shale, and long arms and spindly hands catching the toe of his shoe.

There’s barely time to draw breath, Enjolras finds, as he tilts to the side and his feet skid out from under him. Barely time to gasp, let alone to cry out.

Grantaire starts, wheels, pitches toward him. But his legs must not be in the practice of springing to help, because his hands sweep through empty air.

It’s an uncharitable thought, Enjolras knows, but he has it anyway.

This time, his response is instinctive and well ingrained. Enjolras knows how to fall, tucks his brittle limbs in close and redirects his momentum as much as he’s able, careening down the slope with dizzying speed. His heart hammers, but Enjolras tries to keep breathing, leans into the motion and focuses on keeping his head from cracking against the ground and less on his elbows and shins.

A final gyroscopic spin dunks him into raging water, and Enjolras exhales sharply at the cold shock of it, tossed wildly before he orients himself.

Below the raging current, there is stillness.

There is also a huddle of strange creatures, all long aqua limbs studded with rocks and scales, and protuberant eyes a slick and glowing indigo.

“Welcome,” one of them says, and no bubbles leave its mouth. “Have you come to stay?”

Enjolras’ breath gives out, but the instinctive inhale just pulls in air, the area around him flickering silver like a bubble of oxygen. His feet don’t quite touch the bottom, not yet, and he’s wary of the silvery strands of reeds that reach up for him like more grasping hands.

“I am sorry, I have not,” Enjolras says as politely as he can, and spreads his hands, conciliatory. “I have to hurry on, but I’m sure you’ll have guests enough soon.”

“But it has been a very long time since we’ve had company,” the creature moans, its feathery hair like green-grey strands of algae undulating around its face. “We would play you such music as you never heard, feed you as you have never had a feast, drape you in pearls and shells finer than anything. A night, guest, and then we will send you on your way.”

Its sorrowful, earnest expression, backed by the low hopeful keen of its brethren, might have swayed a gentler soul, but Enjolras is neither gentle nor relenting, and all too aware of the plants, waving and straining up towards him.

He does not answer, does not try to kick up from the bottom, simply curls his legs and launches himself upward, not for the surface of the water, not for the banks on the far sides of the river, but only for the roaring current, treacherous as it is.

But Enjolras has moved too slowly, or only just fast enough, because the creatures are snarling before he even leaves the sheltered water, baring needle-like teeth and vicious nails as they swarm up after him. They nearly rake his leg but thankfully are too slow, and Enjolras throws himself into the rush of water, tucks his limbs in tightly, and does not try to stop himself until the screeching fades into the distance.

Only then does he dare to redirect his tumultuous path to the side, riding an eddy of water to the river bank and grabbing a fistful of grass and mint. He uses it to haul himself out of the water, bruised and aching, but little worse for the wear. The sky looks only a little darker, but he’s sure he’s lost time, thankful only that the river seems to have carried him closer to the city, if away from the forested ridge where he lost Grantaire.

No time to wait or to look, only to carry onward, and so he does.

Determined and soaking wet, feet squelching unpleasantly in his shoes, Enjolras hikes over a handful of hills. His breath aches against his battered ribs, but Enjolras endures it with as little wincing as he can. He feels bedraggled and foolish, wants desperately to be back at work, or to be home where he can make up a cup of tea and do some reading before bed. But this is more than obligation, something that has chosen and is continually choosing, even though he doubts it will be any less hard or exhausting once he makes it out of the Labyrinth. So he grits his teeth and pushes on, even when the hills suddenly and unpleasantly give way to a seemingly endless mound of discarded items.

It doesn’t reek the way a trash heap might, but it does smell musty and old, not so much rotting as like an empty storage attic, and that’s the best thing he can say about it. Even Enjolras’ sure feet stumble over the uneven, shifting detritus.

There’s nothing for it though, because the field of junk just seems to curl around the city for miles in both directions, and across it is the shortest path.

Enjolras is exhausted by now, and only his deeply held self-control keeps him upright and going. He’s used to pulling all-nighters, sometimes even longer than that, but the exertion then is usually mental rather than physical. His body simply isn’t conditioned to an extra eight or nine hours of mostly-strenuous physical activity.

And though he doesn’t allow himself to lag, eventually a teetering table gives way under his feet and sends him crashing down the side of the mound, skidding to a stop when he manages to catch his heels on a well-placed piece of wood, heartbeat thrashing under his skin.

There’s a short, sharp cry as the pile shifts, and then, sudden and crotchety: “Get off my back! Why don’t you look where you’re going, young man, hmm?”

Enjolras twists and leaps the rest of the way to the ground even as the pile turns, revealing a hunched old goblin woman with all of it strapped to her back. She glowers up at him, face pinched with displeasure.

“My apologies,” he says, cautious and composed. “I should have paid better attention.”

She huffs, short and sharp. “Where _were_ you going?”

“The city,” Enjolras answers, too politic to answer fully, but the real reason seems suddenly fuzzy. He needs to go to the city, yes, for a reason that will reveal himself when he’s there.

The old goblin hums thoughtfully, turns back to the heap and rummages around.

“Well, you can’t go to the city without a map, can you?” she asks, waving a piece of paper as she glances back to him, and Enjolras realizes suddenly that, somehow, she’s pulled out a carefully annotated map of Paris’ neighborhoods that he’d thought miserably lost last week, tugged from his hand by a strong gust of wind.

“May I-” Enjolras begins to ask, but she’s already pressed it into his hands and has turned away. He steps after her, the towering stacks of furniture melting into the confines of his living room, and the old woman is hovering by his desk, gathering up the papers he’d left out of order.

“What?” Enjolras murmurs to himself, distracted even as he walks over to take the papers from her, idly propping his knee on the chair as he looks at them, frowning fiercely. There’s something strange about this, something that shouldn’t sit right, and the old woman’s voice grates against him even as she wanders off to his bookshelves, but he’s struck with a flash of insight as his eyes skim the papers, and he reaches for a pen to make a note.

“- and you always loved this, didn’t you? Carried it with you everywhere,” the old woman prattles, and sets Enjolras’ old childhood blanket on the chair, all faded yellow fabric patterned with brighter yellow stars.

He _had_ loved it, liked smoothing his hands across the worn fabric even when it had gone worn down and delicate, and he ought to get something like this for the girl who will apparently be his ward, now – and that’s, wait, that’s –

Before the thought completes, he blinks, and finds his chair piled higher still, with cherished books and trinkets of good times, the sorts of things he looks to that sow just a bit of quiet in his heart. All the relics of the life he can’t wait to get back to, the work that’s so _important_ he should never have left it at all, and he should simply move this aside and sit, return to his papers –

“Now, _this_ is a treasure, my dear.” The old goblin woman shoves a framed picture into his hands, something frantic underlying her voice. “You’ll want that, won’t you?”

Absently, Enjolras accepts it, and then really looks at it, taken aback. Of course he wants this, one of his favorite photos, of him and Musichetta and Feuilly and Combeferre after a protest, paint still smeared a little along Feuilly’s cheek.

Feuilly – Feuilly is someone Enjolras has always admired, for his dedication to the cause. But more than that, because Feuilly was deprived of a family but adopted the entire world in their stead, and he’s warm and kind and constantly thinks the world can be made better, that people can make themselves better.

And what would Feuilly think of Enjolras, distracted here when there’s work to be done? When there’s another small child who doesn’t have a family, either, no one but _him_.

The world clarifies like crystal.

Work is important, but some things are more important than that.

Enjolras shakes himself, sets the photo down, and finds himself surrounded by scraps of his life. They don’t weigh him down, though he is grateful and glad for what he has: he doesn’t cling to them the way of this poor goblin grandmother, who carries the fear of loss heavy on her bent shoulders.

“Forgive me,” he tells her as kindly as he’s able, the temptation of haziness brutally shoving away the temptation to curl his lip at her. “I have too much to do to stay here.”

Firmly, Enjolras turns away and strides forward, unsure how to figure out the maze of stacks, but certain he’ll do so eventually.

“Enjolras!” Grantaire cries sharply, scrambling down a collapsing pile of rubbish, surprisingly surefooted. There’s fear on his face, but it resolves as he stops, looking between Enjolras and the distracted old goblin. He blinks, taken aback, then eyes Enjolras with renewed interest, or perhaps respect. “I see you managed to get yourself out of trouble again.”

It makes Enjolras smile, almost despite himself. “And I see you’ve managed to find me with little trouble.”

Grantaire rolls his shoulders in a careless shrug and a wry smile curls across his mouth. “It was easy enough to follow the enraged screaming of the water imps, and this is the clearest path to the city from there. I hadn’t expected to find you safe, but you exist just to surprise me, don’t you?”

“Not just that,” Enjolras replies, just as dry, and looks to the side, to the high walls of the city and spire of the Goblin King’s castle beyond. “Do you know where to go from here?”

“Mm-hm,” Grantaire agrees. His eyes flicker over Enjolras again, taking in his mostly-dry-again clothing and his disarrayed hair, apparently sees the conviction in his face, and turns towards another collapsed pile. “Up this way. And forward. We’re nearly to the city.”

Enjolras follows him up, and doesn’t ask what Grantaire had thought when Enjolras disappeared over the side of the cliff. Tries not to think about what it means that Grantaire had searched for him and followed him here, had worry about losing him to this place’s thrall. He doesn’t succeed, but at least he lets the silence sit between them.

"Why is it called the Labyrinth?" Enjolras finally asks, searching for footing as they make their way down another pile of discarded furniture, the high stone walls looming over them. "It seems more like a maze."

Grantaire looks back at him and shakes his head, his mouth tilting up into a sly little smile as he descends easily, his feet never once slipping. "It's... more complicated than that. There's an underlying structure to the land, of course there is, but it shifts depending on the runner's conception of a Labyrinth - which, of course, changes how they run it. For each runner, there is only one way to reach the castle beyond the Goblin City, if they intend to win."

He contemplates that, turning it over in his mind, nearly falling when a misplaced step sends the junk shifting and rumbling, creaking with threat. Enjolras is more careful after that, and it's only when they're safely on the ground that he says anything. "I'm not sure this is what I would think of, for a labyrinth."

This time, Grantaire doesn't bother looking back, though he does pause a step to let Enjolras fall in beside him, following the narrow, curving path of the wall. "Yes, but it's only partly _your_ Labyrinth. Who do you think most of our Runners are?"

"Younger than me," he guesses, which makes sense. A man in his twenties is likely to have resources and maturity that a teenager would not.

That earns him a nod, and there's too much knowledge in Grantaire's strange eyes, in the way he looks up with a worn out and weary resignation. "If they were you, they'd not have a need for goblins, joking or no. There's not many as know their right words these days, but those that do have much to prove if they want their child back. It's not often that someone sits for days and thinks, "oh, well, I'd best call on shadow stories to take this child away from me," and those that do are cruel or desperate, as threadbare as the world at the turns of moon and earth that wane walls thin. Of course, some just name a child beyond the walls of the church and hope the trolls or devil are listening close, and some scour plays for a path of growing. That's humanity for you, and it's just a question of if it's better to be _un gnome_ than _un homme_."

Enjolras pauses, confused, and then blinks at the pun, amused despite the seriousness of their conversation. Still, he's unsettled, and finally gives voice to the question that's been rattling against his ribs for too many hours now. "... And how many have failed despite themselves, if I'm the first alternate to be offered a choice?"

Grantaire's eyes are luminous, but it's disquieting rather than brilliant, and his grin is too wide, too wild, and he spins to walk effortlessly backward, his hands flying as he speaks.

"That's the question, isn't it? The laying of blame is like the laying of eggs - inconstant and often disappointing, and you can eat crow but not fault. Chickens, and their fearful flesh, are also involved. How many take temptation, knowing it's an excuse, rather to have a little golden apple than to taste the bitter fruit of knowledge? Once a person leaves the Labyrinth, they are the artist of their own stories in their own realms - there are not many artists at all among goblins, we've not the patience nor the imagination for it, though we're a daft hand at harmonies - and they're free to paint their efforts as they will."

Enjolras' frustration must show on his face, because Grantaire laughs. He wants to dismiss it as something _fae_ he doesn't understand, but as far as Enjolras can tell, Grantaire is less goblin and more human than he seems to want to admit, sometimes.

There's a moment of pause before Grantaire finishes his thought, his hands stilling from their flourishes as the gruesome cheer falls from his face. "You ask a complicated question, but when it comes down to the real question of effort, and ability, and agency, the Labyrinth only needs to make one mistake."

Despite all their differences, Enjolras can tell - they both think that once was more than enough. If he had met a fully-human Grantaire, away from the Labyrinth, he might have given up in exasperation, too impatient to sift through the deluges of his words, and he's glad he's learning to hear what's said and what's unsaid.

"Thank you," Enjolras says.

Grantaire waves a hand, even as something in his shoulders lightens, and his grin is suddenly much more puckish. "Just be glad your path has rather fewer pitfalls."

It must be false cheer, though, because there’s no more than a few minutes of silence, long enough that they must be closing in on their destination, before Grantaire bursts the quiet open again, looking sharply over at Enjolras.

"Okay, but why?" Grantaire asks, and it's not bitter, but it is demanding. He sounds offhand, almost idly mocking when he speaks, but Enjolras is learning to read the crease of his brows and the focus of his eyes. The defensive and unforgiving wall of his arms, crossed over his chest. "Would she really be better off with you, in your world? You don't look like you've wanted a child, and suddenly you'll take responsibility, if it's offered as a low hanging fruit? Goblins may not be human, but she’d not be unwanted, so it becomes a question of where your motivations lie. You could, on a whim, wake again and think of this as nothing more than some dream, some bit of unreality spun out of your worries and preoccupations, some subconscious level down in your mind. Which would make perfect sense, since people are never selfless."

"It's not... only an ethical question," Enjolras says, slowly. He wants to look away from Grantaire, to let his eyes slide to the wall, to the roofs beyond, but doesn’t dare to let himself. "It's true that I've never considered having a child, and it would - it _will_ be strange to adapt."

He pauses, struggling through his thoughts. It's always been harder for him to work on translating grand ideas of what is _right_ to the concrete actions of the real world. He's been learning, lately, in the quiet kindnesses that let him reschedule a meeting to attend Musichetta's talk at a conference or buy gelato for Courfeyrac when the depression hits him hard and it's all he can stomach. Enjolras is secretly convinced that he's much more fortunate to have his friends than they are to have him. His friends, who will undoubtedly help him keep from fumbling this as well, share the responsibilities as he learns them, and make sure he doesn’t misstep horribly along the way.

He thinks of Marius, who keeps his admiration of his absent, long-denied father as threadbare and tightly-clutched as the coat he wore when he first met them all. He thinks of _Cosette's_ father, quietly remarking that she's blossomed with them, watching his daughter with a quiet pride and sadness and affection in his eyes.

"She's a person," Enjolras continues at last, suddenly firm in his reply. "I don't even know her name - I'm not sure anyone would remember it, if I failed. I'm sure that there would be chances for her to grow, here, but she's human and she's a child, and she deserves to be able to make her own choices about these sorts of things. I don't know that I'll be the best guardian, but I'll have help while I figure it out, and I want to make sure that she has options and that someone will always fight for her right to make her own decisions."

Grantaire is watching him with something like amazement, maybe almost awe, and the harsh lines of his posture finally soften again, the theatricality so inherent to the Labyrinth melting away. He shakes his head a little, disbelieving, but he looks like Enjolras' answer is satisfactory.

"So, you're not much of a marble statue, after all," he drawls, teasing.

Enjolras can't help the scoff. "Not at all. Perhaps the statues here might move and speak, but I'm afraid I'm depressingly human."

“Just so long as you aren’t a human depression,” Grantaire replies, and nods to the door set into the walls, and the mechanized defender set into it. “I don’t think you’ll able to talk your way around that one.”

No, certainly not something he can talk through or sneak past. They could, perhaps, edge around the outside wall and attempt to scale it, but Enjolras is learning the landscape well enough to know that it would never go smoothly and that this challenge must be here for a _reason_.

Besides, Enjolras, for all his friends sometimes tease him for his solemnity, is serious in his pleasures, and that includes playing video games every so often. And this seems like the sort of arcane challenge that requires similar, unorthodox thinking.

There’s a cry from the guards on the wall as they approach, delighted yelling that rises with the whir of gears and creaky machinery. There’s not going to be much time for strategy.

Enjolras glances to the side to find Grantaire watching him with a peculiar look.

“I can disable it if I can get to the controls,” Grantaire tells him. “It’s not my specialty, but I’m pretty great at breaking things.”

He considers that, looks back to the construct. “If I tell you where and when to dodge?”

“Right.” Grantaire beams at him, honestly beams, and even if it’s a bit cheeky, it’s still sweet, a strange look on this often fatalistic goblin with glass and trinkets tied into his hair and bits of ribbon threaded through his clothing. There’s trust there, and it startles Enjolras to have any of it.

Grantaire darts from the underbrush like a rabbit, calling something insulting up at the goblin piloting the construct, which is popping and hissing and flaring as it raises its great axe.

“Left!” Enjolras calls, seeing the trajectory of the axe swing even as it starts, how it would cut too soon for Grantaire to scramble backwards, but too low for him to duck under it.

Without hesitation, Grantaire throws himself left, clearing the axe-blow by inches, nimbly dancing back from the attempted follow up. The goblin in the cockpit snarls and hisses, clearly makes to spin back and swing the same way, backing Grantaire into the corner, but – yes.

“Left!” Enjolras repeats the direction, and Grantaire follows, tumbling forward in a somersault this time, and drops from that flat to the ground as the axe skims over him.

The construct has only just started to pull back the axe, its driver’s snarling turning to gleeful laughter, when Grantaire swings back to his feet, poised for movement and eyes trained on the axe.

“Back right!” Enjolras cries, and hopes Grantaire takes his meaning and heads for the rubble clearly once knocked from the archway.

Again, Grantaire is already moving, darting along the same arc of the axe as it pulls back, making sure the goblin will have to turn the construct entirely now, to get another swing in. It takes a moment, but Grantaire’s gaze seems to catch on the stones as Enjolras’ had, and he sprints for them, braces one hand on them, and vaults over them with easy athleticism, takes an intentionally slow moment to scramble for the full shelter of them.

The goblin falls for it, as do his jeering friends on the wall, and brings the axe curving down low a final time.

“Now!”

Grantaire moves as soon as Enjolras beings his shout, flinging himself up on top of the stones again rather than back or behind them, and not a moment too soon. The axe crashes into the stones with a mighty sound and shudder, sticking even as some of them crumble.

But Grantaire is already continuing the arc of his motion and plants his feet firmly on the edge of the axe.  He runs up the shaft, the hand, the arm, and springs from the elbow to the shoulder and from there into the controller’s pit, shoving the other goblin aside, ignoring it as it – probably wisely – stumbles free and tries to climb down.

Enjolras half expects him to jam the controls, but Grantaire turns the hulking, sparking machine toward the wall and raises his own voice.

“I’m sure you’d much rather be chasing chickens than fighting your own guard,” Grantaire hollers, and though Enjolras cannot see his face, he can hear his sharp-toothed smile. “I am more than happy to crash this into your wall.”

There’s a pause that stretches, tense, for a moment, before the guards throw their spears and run. Grantaire laughs, neither caustic nor delighted, just sharp and a little sad, and ducks down for a few moments before a shower of sparks explodes from the control panel and the sound of gearwork winds down to still silence. Enjolras stands, wades free of the bushes, and goes to examine the doors.

Grantaire, cheekbone streaked with soot but otherwise unaffected, swings himself over the side and makes his way down, looking over at Enjolras as he hits the ground. “Doors aren’t locked, are they?”

“No, they aren’t,” Enjolras replies, pushing one open with a surprisingly quiet squeal. Grantaire doesn’t seem like he wants to speak about their shared triumph, but Enjolras is impressed and grateful, glad for the relative reprieve for even one challenge. So he just meets Grantaire’s eyes and nods, hoping his intent is written on his face.

It may be, because Grantaire’s eyes soften a touch and he lifts his chin a touch before he huffs and begins to push past Enjolras. “Come on, then, you only have about three quarters of an hour left.”

Enjolras had thought he had closer to a full hour, and pales at the miscalculation, at what must have been the time lost between the river and the junkyard. “Then we had best hurry.”

He follows Grantaire’s lead through the twisting and oddly quiet streets, past the thatch-roofed houses, precarious and tall, pressed up against one another in a tumult of haphazard growth. There are squares and fountains, abandoned carts that suggest the city is expecting them, because Enjolras has learned by now that goblins are not _quiet_.

“How likely is it that there’s an army waiting for us at the castle?” he murmurs to Grantaire.

Grantaire snorts, but he keeps it relatively subdued, at least, peeking over his shoulder and up to look Enjolras in the face. “Very. But if you can keep this up, I’m pretty sure I can sneak us in, if the paths haven’t changed too much.”

Enjolras nods, and follows, keeping a cautious, steady eye out for spies or watchers.

Stealth and cat-soft footfalls have always come easily to him, even when he was a child, and he certainly has no problem holding his tongue. Jehan’s teased him for being nearly a ghost, for all his height and all the things that draw others’ attention to him. Courfeyrac rarely, and slightly hypocritically, calls him a cat. But this, at least, is a good day to be either.

It puts him in mind of Musichetta – loud, bright Musichetta who is unfathomably smart and clever and just as kind, and utterly unapologetic for all the things that make people want to box her in. Musichetta who can be as quiet on her feet as he can, who looked him in the eye and said “I never fold myself down for anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to make them not notice me.”

She isn’t here, and it’s sentiment he’s always agreed with, but… Enjolras is comforted for the reminder of her, for thinking of the kindness and good humor she would likely show Grantaire, and it’s no bad thing at all, to have his friends to soften and to sharpen him.

It doesn’t quite soothe away the tension of their soundless trek, but it makes Enjolras’ heart ease a little behind the glass-smooth wall of his intent.

Finally, the castle comes fully into sight, and down the street, Enjolras can indeed see the massed host of goblins, all facing up the main causeway and armed with a cannon. They don’t look like much of a threat, and he’s sure they could deal with them, but time is the greatest factor and Enjolras has no issue slipping past a blockade to accomplish his goals.

Grantaire lifts a hand, beckons Enjolras up a side street and through a winding alley that takes them out of the mob’s line-of-sight. It’s clear that he knows the city as well as he knows the rest of the Labyrinth, because he weaves them through alleys and narrow gaps until they reach a house that backs up to the castle’s wall.

Enjolras, though he still hasn’t seen anyone out and about, has heard the clack of some large creature prowling the next street up and the quiet clinking of armor, and is careful to make his noiseless way to the top of the building and over. Grantaire drops down a moment later, quieter even than should be possible in that strange, magic-touched way.

“I think we can sneak in the back,” Grantaire says, and points out an unguarded door to what seems to be the kitchen.

“Lead the way,” Enjolras says, and it’s not until they’re climbing strangely proportioned stairs that it even occurs to him that Grantaire could be saving one last betrayal, some last hidden loyalty or forced obsequience to the Goblin King. But Grantaire, for all his shifting words, seems to drink in Enjolras’ conviction like he’s parched near to death, and genuinely seems to care what happens here. And so Enjolras follows him, never unwary, not here in the Underground, but as trusting as he dares to be.

They’ve made it past the guards and through the palace, but Enjolras' heart is racing as they head for the throne room. There's so little time left on the clock, and Grantaire must know it too, with the way his brow is creased even more deeply than usual. The throne room, though, is empty of everything but a chicken and a few discarded buckets.

"There's a tower," Grantaire says, pointing at a set of curtains fluttering innocuously by an open window that looks out over the vast stretch of the Labyrinth. "He probably went up there, up to the highest point. This part, I think you’re supposed to do alone."

Enjolras considers that, and shakes his head. “If you cannot come, then… thank you, for your help. But you’ve come with me all this way, and I think this is your right, too.”

Grantaire shrugs a little, uncomfortable, and then hesitates, and Enjolras, though he _does_ understand, feels the quiet prick of disappointment even as he turns back to the stairs, determined and running short on time. Grantaire lurches forward, a flicker of movement.

"Enjolras!" he blurts, then pauses a moment. "Make sure you end it in time."

"What happens if I don't?" he asks, more confused than wary, because he's taken Grantaire at his indignant word that it's no terrible thing to be a goblin, or at least no worse than anything else.

And then, straightening and sober, Grantaire finally meets his eyes head on, a brown that's almost, might be yellow, serious and seeming suddenly resolute. "My sister was moments too late, and it's not something the Labyrinth lets you forget, no matter what other memories or humanness it strips away."

Everything slots into place and Enjolras' brain clamors with it, around it, wants to dissect it, but there's no time now. Instead, he nods firmly and as reassuringly as he can, as thankful as he can show for the trust he still feels he has to earn. "I won't let that happen again."

Grantaire nods back, firm with belief, and his feet follow even as Enjolras is off and up the stairs, only to stumble into a strange, incomprehensible tangle of paradoxes. It's like stepping into an optical illusion or along the narrow curves of a blacksmith's puzzle. There is Jareth, laughing, and a little girl with a fluff of dark hair chewing on a knuckle at the edge of a sharp drop.

It doesn't take him more than a few cautious turns of his own to realize that the impossible room is designed to keep him from ever reaching her, and that there is a trick he has to figure out. A final test, so to speak.

And then he rounds the corner into Jareth, who appears as if from nowhere, his jagged curve of a smile tilting his mouth off balance. "Well! I never thought you might get this far."

"I've not finished yet," is all Enjolras says, studying the Goblin King. There is a catch here, something he's missing.

"Tick tock," Jareth says, and laughs. "Goodness, but it would be _embarrassing_ , to come so far and fail now. Especially when there are two of you. Why, that's breaking the rules."

Grantaire, just at the edge of Enjolras' sightline, stiffens slightly like he's just come to a realization, though Enjolras doubts it was the same as his own understanding that the room rotates. He knows that, he must. So it must be something else.

"That prohibition wasn't in the rules of our wager," Enjolras asserts, steady, unintimidated. There's still time. "I've made it past the Goblin City-"

There's a brief flash of _something_ on Jareth's face, but Enjolras doesn't have time enough to analyze it, because Grantaire _leaps_ for the ledge where the child is sitting, arms stretched out for her even though there's no possible way for him to make it, for him not to fall into one of the gaps that sink into abyssal darkness - an awaiting oubliette or worse.

As with all else here, Enjolras is wrong, because there's a cracking sound like the shattering of ice, and the four of them are in the orange toned desert again, purple richly saturating the sky. Jareth looks furious and betrayed, and Grantaire is seated cross-legged on the ground, curled over the baby clutched in his lap. He straightens a little, though his hold is still protective, and watches them both intently.

Enjolras stares Jareth in the eye.

"You could still go home," Jareth murmurs, another flash of crystal in his fingers, clearer than glass, and his words are mesmerizing as his hand sweeps out. "Forget all of this and the nightmares that would ensue. Or stay, of course, and try your hand at rallying my subjects to oppose me, not that you would succeed. What's one little unwanted child in the face of the freedom of the many?"

It's a lie. And the goblins, well, they are adults and can fight for their own freedom without his agitation. A little girl has no such recourse.

"Quite a bit," he says, softly, and struggles for the answer. There's a fight to win, and -

“It's all a matter of knowing where to put the pressure,” Bahorel says, booming and amiable in his memory, "or of knowing how to take the pressure off of you. That's how you win a fight, when you're backed into a corner."

Enjolras doesn't smile, but he straightens just a little more.

"You have power over your Labyrinth and your subjects," he tells the Goblin King, "but you don't have power over the child yet, or even Grantaire, fully. I've passed through your lands and your tests, and I have fulfilled our agreement - through the Labyrinth and the city to the child. You have no dominion over me, Jareth, Goblin King, and I collect your forfeit."

Jareth should look furious, and he does, for a very long fraction of a second, and then his mouth curls up again with something almost like a fierce, proud delight, and he snaps his fingers as the world shatters again.

When the sound clears, Enjolras is standing in his own living room again, beside the desk where his papers and his cellphone sit, and there is no longer glittering sand spilling loosely onto his floor. And yet, his clothing is still wrinkled and stiff from river water, his tangled hair only barely contained by a straining hair tie.

Grantaire is sitting on his couch, a blinking and sleepy baby still held in his lap.

“So, you did it,” Grantaire says, looking over at Enjolras, his face an enigma in the soft light of the lamps. He rises to his feet, arm tucked securely under the little girl, and approaches. “I guess you probably wanna meet your kid?”

_His kid_. Enjolras has been thinking of her as a ward, but no, she only has him now, and that makes her his daughter. He has _no idea_ what to do with a daughter, how to be a parent, but he’s fought for her, and if he can do that for twelve straight hours, he can learn how to do it for the rest of her life. Besides, he has friends, people who will help him learn how to do this right, the way he never would have been able to rescue her at all without their help, even if they weren’t there in person.

“Please,” Enjolras says, and scoops her out of Grantaire’s arms. She’s heavier than he expected, but content, blinking up at him with curious eyes, apparently no worse for the wear for her hours in the Goblin Kingdom. “Hello.”

“Bah,” she greets, face breaking into a cheerful smile, and she reaches up a tiny hand to push against his face.

“That’s adorable,” Grantaire says, laughter underlying his voice. “Let’s see if we can find out what her name is, yeah?”

He turns toward Enjolras’ desk, humming thoughtfully. There are unfamiliar papers on his desk, birth certificates and adoption papers and a CNI and a passport, stacked like a neat approval of Enjolras’ victory.

Grantaire picks them up, looks at the first paper. “Nina? That’s sweet.”

It’s not the name Enjolras would have picked, but it is sweet, the sort of name a young woman might have lovingly picked, a bright and pretty name for a bright and pretty baby.

“Hello, Nina,” Enjolras says solemnly, and catches her hand in his, letting her wrap her chubby fist around his finger. “I’m Enjolras. And in a few minutes, I am going to text Courfeyrac and Joly and Combeferre, and somehow I am going to explain this whole very absurd story to them, and we are going to make sure you have every last thing that you need. You are going to have a lot of aunts and uncles, so I hope you’re prepared to be very, very loved.”

Grantaire huffs, clearly amused, and goes back to studying the papers, and frowns as he realizes there’s more than one set of identification there.

“What?” Grantaire says, very quietly, and he looks rather stunned as he draws the same conclusion Enjolras already has, staring at that second set of papers blankly before looking to Enjolras helplessly.

“I think I may have claimed your release from the Goblin Kingdom,” Enjolras says, apologetic. “I am… sorry. I didn’t mean to take your home from you.”

A sigh, less explosive and more disbelieving resignation, and Grantaire’s mouth slashes in a bittersweet smile. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess.”

Enjolras looks at him curiously for that, Nina’s head dropping drowsily onto his shoulder. Well, meeting the flashy, dramatic Goblin King must have been a tiring adventure for a baby.

“I don’t think he could have let me stay, after that,” Grantaire replies, and shrugs, but it falls flat. He tilts the identification card back and forth like it holds secrets unfathomed. Maybe he’s been given back a name he’d lost, a home he’d lost, and that would be enough to make anyone adrift.

It’s strange, to see Grantaire here. He looks both more and less human – the goblin lines of his face are softened a little away from the unreality of the Underground, but the colored glass in his ink-dark bird’s nest of curls and the loose, blousy rough-spun clothing make him stand out against the backdrop of the modern apartment. Short, and not pretty, something unreal in the sheen of those gold-brown eyes and faintly pointed ears, sharp teeth hidden behind the thoughtful frown.

“You could stay,” Enjolras finds himself saying, and doesn’t immediately want to draw it back behind his teeth. Twelve hours is so little time, but so long in the Goblin Kingdom. “You rescued her too.”

“I don’t know anything about the human world,” Grantaire protests, taken aback, but the hand clutching the papers drops to his side as he looks up at Enjolras, suspicious. “You’ll have enough on your hands, learning how to be a parent. You don’t owe it to me to teach me human things too.”

If he’s worried that Enjolras holds power over him, that he would use it to keep Grantaire tethered to his side for his own desires, it’s… a fair worry, after moving out from under the thumb of the Goblin King. And how should Grantaire know whether it’s reward or punishment or both, to be kicked out of the land that’s been his home into the world that once was?

“If the power balance makes you uncomfortable, I understand,” Enjolras begins, but Grantaire waves a sharp hand, cutting him off.

“I’m still half goblin,” Grantaire says, dry. “I could find another fae court to take me, if that’s what I wanted. And I don’t. But if you did something to piss me off, I can move through mirrors and shadows and leave in a heartbeat. I’m not… that’s not what I’m worried about. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

“I have friends,” Enjolras replies, and he tries to be gentle. It’s not something he’s used to, but it’s something he ought to start practicing, for the people he loves, for Nina, nearly asleep in his arms. “I’m not doing this alone. And I know you have a lot of things to figure out, and I don’t want to interfere with that. But… I’m sure the Goblin Kingdom left its mark on Nina, and I think she’d like your help learning how not to lose that part of her, too. You won her back just as much as I did, if you want to be in her life. And I like you, and I think we could maybe figure out all of this together.”

Grantaire looks at Enjolras, deep enough that it seems to cut into his bones, uncanny but nonthreatening.

“Yeah,” he finally says, and a smile splits his face like the sun. “We can figure this out together, too.”

Nina’s head is tucked under his chin, hair dandelion-soft, and the night is peaceful and hushed, and Enjolras is suddenly sure that yes, they will.


End file.
